More on my fiction writing

February 18, 2010

Freeway to hell

What will be the final nail in the coffin of the city of Phoenix? I vote for the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway.

If the freeway is built, it will be a gamble for everybody. A bet that the old sprawl model can work one last time to generate short-term profits for the Real Estate Industrial Complex by turning largely worthless land into sites for tilt-up commercial space, subdivisions, shopping strips, In-N-Out Burger boxes and the entire dreary aggregation of suburbia. Some stand to get very wealthy off the deal, including, apparently, Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio. Like so many "local leaders," he is not a high-tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, stem-cell researcher, professor or clergyman -- he's a real-estate guy. But with so much leverage still weighing down the development game and higher energy prices just around the corner, one has to wonder if the ol' Growth Machine has one more go in it. Yet Arizona is like a dinosaur whose tiny reptilian brain hasn't yet processed that its tail is on fire -- so it will keep building out a 1965 transportation system.

It worked in LA in 1965 because Los Angeles actually had a real economy, not just a real-estate economy. And gasoline was still cheap; America itself had not yet hit its national oil peak. Now Southern California has destroyed so much of itself with freeways and, facing the damage, has embarked on rebuilding its once-great rail infrastructure. Thus, LA now has one of the nation's most extensive light-rail systems and commuter rail operations. In Phoenix (and this deserves its own Phoenix 101 post), freeways were mostly about maximizing profits for landholders and developers whose property was otherwise good only for agriculture or worthless desert. The real economy always lagged, and finally stopped trying to keep up entirely. But the biggest loser from the freeways was the city of Phoenix.

Phoenicians paid by far the largest amount of sales taxes that built the suburban freeways that then sucked development, residents and ultimately much of the region's already limited business base out of the city. Yes, the city nominally benefits from the development along the Loop 101 in far north Phoenix -- but that area is not culturally, socially or historically part of the city (same for AllWhiteTukee) -- and it can't make up for the damage done by the Papago Freeway, or ultimately abandoned Paradise Parkway, or the probably hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. Much less can it make up for the damage done to the city economy by East Valley suburbs that exist only because of aggressive freeway building. And Phoenicians paid for this privilege.

The South Mountain Freeway would complete the encirclement of the city by suburban freeways. If the financial system allows it, it would lead to the predictable wave of soul-destroying warehouses and office "parks," most built on spec. The leasing boyz would be about town luring companies in the central city out to new space on the loop. And so limited is the local economy -- yes, it is largely a zero-sum game. While some of this might be nominally located in the city limits, it will pull companies and potential investment away from downtown, the central city, even the Biltmore area. Thus, like its predecessors, this new freeway will help deter reinvestment in the existing urban footprint while helping expand linear slums, teardowns and empty land in the core.

The environmental consequences will be similarly atrocious. Car-caused pollution is already the largest smog problem in the region, which suffers from high asthma and other smog-worsened illnesses. This freeway will make it worse. It will help kill off the last of agriculture in the southwest part of the metro area, further aggravating the dangerous heat island. Apparently it will be the most expensive freeway yet built -- that's helpful for a state that is selling off its crappy buildings just to stay out of hock. And at a time when the world is changing, it is a foolish diversion of resources and attention. The metro area should be focused on providing frequent, convenient 21st century transportation options, especially commuter rail, light-rail and trains to Tucson (and LA), as well as the Sky Train at the airport. These projects would create more jobs, especially permanent ones, than freeway-building. They would reduce pollution and give the region a chance, at least, in the higher-cost energy future.

Metro Phoenix has enough freeways. It has too many freeways. Need to bypass the city on Interstate 10? -- do it at Casa Grande using I-8 and then rejoin I-10 via Arizona 85, or vice versa.

The city of Phoenix is already at the tipping point. It has the majority of the metro area's poor, working poor, including low-skilled, first-generation immigrants with no way into the mainstream. It has the majority of social problems, linear slums and underfunded, underperforming schools. It lacks the economic size and diversity of any other city of its population, or even those considerably less populous. Thus it increasingly struggles to meet its "carrying costs" as a large city, much less compete in the world economy. Nor does it have the cool, energetic downtown and urban neighborhoods to attract young talent (choices its competitors all offer, while also having lookalike subdivisions outside town, too). The spec crapola in places like Chandler and Goodyear, built in the mid-2000s, will siphon off more economic vitality in whatever tepid recovery might come.

The South Mountain Freeway has no redeeming value -- unless you're one of the elites who will profit from it. Or one of perhaps the majority that can't even imagine another "lifestyle" that isn't built around endless driving and freeways. That's how they roll in "the Valley," right?

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While I agree with the majority of critical points made about the Phoenix sprawl machine, I still contend that this freeway is different. Given the growth of the Valley since some of those other foolishly abandoned in-town freeway plans, the South Mountain loop is more like a modern equivalent of those than it is the same growth enabler that the far eastern portion of the 202 or the far northern segment of the 101 (not to mention ongoing improvements to the US-60, I-17, and Loop 303).

Instead of singling out the freeways that continue to build tentacles out into raw desert land far away from commercial centers, I don't understand picking the one that encircles the very heart of town, never extending more than 11 miles from the core (as determined as 0 blocks N,S,E,W).

By better connecting the "All-White-Tukee" area with West Phoenix, the Loop 202 can help reinvigorate the aging I-10 corridors nearest both its intersections with that other freeway, while also punishing the fools who convinced themselves that they owned the world's largest cul de sac or those who chose to move way out into the suburbs and have always gotten what they want for infrastructure.

Ten years ago, I might have agreed with you about the lack of utility of the Loop-202. But now I view it in light of growth trends that continue to occur and feel that it will bring a great deal of improvement to some of the Valley's oldest and often overlooked communities. The only area for substantial in-town development that borders this freeway is in Laveen, which is all slated for some sort of development anyhow. As a Laveen resident, I trust that our Village planning leaders maintain a great track record for sticking with the well-conceived and hard fought SW Regional Growth Study that was commissioned in the 1990s.

So viva la urban heart, but let's also keep in mind all the other multigenerational AZ families who have watched their in-town neighborhoods abandoned in favor of sprawl. We are the ones who stand to benefit most from this.

And on another note, I can't help but laugh from my hard-learned cynical perspective that Sal DiCiccio claims he doesn't stand to gain by favoring the realignment of the freeway onto GRIC land (which is the stance he recently adopted).

In his response to concerns over potential conflicts of interest, DiCiccio pointed out that his land was closer to the initial Pecos alignment, and thus would have benefited from it. What he somehow omitted is that he will also profit by serving as the fee developer for GRIC's commercial land that sits near the newly proposed alignment. So with nearby freeway access to land that he owns (but not too close), AND the opportunity to take fees for even greater swaths of land to be developed, this guy really comes out on top!

Not to mention, he's the political hero of the upper-middle-class imbeciles who failed to read their builders reports before moving in.

I heartily agree that the 202 completion will be a final nail. That the crook DiCiccio is involved is certainly a bellweather. This guy is the epitome of "please God, just one more boom" and so is Patrick evidently. The loop will only increase our tax burden, won't lure any new companies to Phoenix, will enrich the GRIC even more at taxpayer expense (building that last stretch will make for lucrative rents for the tribe), won't even provide many jobs, and only enrich those fools that did buy in the largest cul-de-sac in the country.

Correction: DiCiccio has never actively omitted the fact that he controls land near the proposed route for the Loop 202. In fact he's been quite honest about it. But I disagree that there is no conflict of interest on his part. By using his political sway to please Ahwatukee residents and move the freeway plans forward, he is also ensuring the future profitability of his development prospects. More info: http://bit.ly/d1siHr

@eclecticdog, I'm not for the "one more boom" mindset at all. In fact, I'd prefer to see the entire Phoenix area focus on building a sustainable economy and discourage the sprawling suburbs that have enabled the real estate industrial complex to thrive at others' expense. If Arizona's state and local governments started using projects like this one to demonstrate an economic focus on infill growth, it would bode well for shaping responsible development. I also believe that the skytrain should be completed, along with commensurate efforts to reinvigorate the entire Washington/Van Buren corridor that connects Phoenix and Tempe. This area should be a gold mine for developers, despite the huge pock mark of a superfund site that interrupts it (thanks to Motorolla et al). Meanwhile, why not support the revitalization of our old boulevards, including South Central Avenue between the tracks and Baseline Road.

It seems to me that the economic development and continued interconnectedness of places like Laveen and Ahwatukee provide for significant opportunities in-between, like in South Phoenix and Guadalupe. If we don't make some concessions to the real estate industry, our default setting somehow seems to favor even more building on the outskirts. This freeway does little if any to encourage more out-bound growth.

The death pall that enshrouds Phoenix might not seem so bad if there was a real conversation about our future. But apart from Talton and some ASU faculty, the discussion is muted and weak. Every bad choice we made in the past is underwriting future bad choices. We can no more imagine stopping this madness than admit how much it corrupted us in the first place.

At some point, the choices we think we're making will simply vanish. The string we compulsively pull will become string we vainly try to push. What will tell ourselves then? That Mexicans ruined everything?

Know nothingism is the ideological core of conservatism's current iteration. It dismisses environmental science, ordinary limits, and long-view planning. This ideology is self-contradictory. It imagines a free lunch but in a context Social Darwinists understand. We can drive ourselves to hell but the taxes that maintain the road are already delinquent.

This is the best example of how forward-thinking the Kooks are. They're deliberatly drawing business out of the core so that, in 20 years, they can rebuild a newly-reborn Phoenix from the ashes on the vacant land in the center. They're just making room in the center now to make re-locations later un-necessary.
(end sarcasm)
This may be the actual result, if Phoenix survives to be re-born, but its obvious that no one is actually planning it that way...

(resume sarcasm)
Oh and the land they're developing now? That will be re-deployed as agriculture in the next incarnation. We're covering it with concrete to let it 'rest' as farmers have done for centuries.
(end sarcasm)

Progressive theology tends to debunk much of the Biblical folklore and focuses on being open to the realities of today.
It provides an interesting parallel to the above paragraph that talks about "know nothingism as the ideological core of conservatism's current iteration, dismissing environmental science, ordinary limits, and long-view planning."